AI Engineer at Mercura (W25) €90K - €200K EUR AI Quote and Order Automation for Distributors & Manufacturers Munich, BY, DE / Munich, Bavaria, DE Full-time US citizenship/visa not required 1+ years About Mercura You know someone great? Introduce them to founders@mercura.ai and get up to €10,000 in referral bonuses if we hire them!* Mercura is building AI software for the backbone of our economy. We are one of the fastest growing companies from YC’s W25 batch and raised a heavily oversubscribed round at one of the highest valuations in our cohort. After surpassing $1M in ARR in under a year, we are looking for team members ready to go all-in to help us reach our next milestone: $10M ARR by the end of 2026. One of our co-founders, Lukas, grew up in a trades family that has been active in the construction industry for over 115 years. Having worked on the construction site himself, he learned first-hand how slow and manual quoting still is in the industry. In an era where AI becomes ubiquitous, we set out on a deeply personal mission: bring AI to the backbone of our economy - to the companies that keep our world running. WHY MERCURA Join an ambitious team that feels like family: Your future colleagues include top graduates, Science Olympiad medallists, ex-founders and come from places such as Google, Bain, MIT, TUM, Harvard, CDTM, and Cambridge. We bring extraordinary people together and deeply invest in your growth as your mentors, teammates and friends. We care, trust, and support one another like family, and we make sure that fun is at the heart of everything we do. Work with the latest tech: AI is at the core of our product. As we are backed by Y Combinator, and leverage the latest tech to push the boundaries of LLMs and ML. With us, you’ll tackle meaningful challenges and shape how users interact with AI. Thrive in a high-growth, high-commitment environment: We’re growing extremely fast because we work hard and always put our customers first. If you excel in fast-paced settings and want to grow as part of something big from day one, Mercura is for you. Build something with real-world impact: We ship code that directly helps a massive, yet overlooked manual industry run more efficiently and sustainably. With us, you can work on AI that contributes to economic growth and stability on a huge scale. Build our company: As an early team member, you will have a direct, lasting impact on our culture, technology, and product. Joining us offers immense rewards: ownership, financial upside, and the unique opportunity to learn and build something extraordinary from the ground up. ABOUT THE FOUNDERS We are Lukas, Stefan & Sean, the co-founders of Mercura. We share a deep commitment to excellence and the discipline to pursue what others might consider impossible. Two of us come from non-academic families, and we all know what it means to create our own paths and overcome barriers. This experience shapes our belief in equal opportunity and fuels our dedication to social mobility. At Mercura, we believe that the best ideas emerge when people from different backgrounds collaborate together. We hire based on ability, mindset, and values, and we live by one simple rule: the best idea wins. We actively support initiatives that promote diversity and gender equity. Each year, we also commit a portion of our personal income to organizations working to expand opportunity for others. We’re a small, fully in-person team based in Munich that feels like family. We bring extraordinary people together and deeply invest in each other’s growth as mentors, teammates and friends. We care, trust, and support one another, and we make sure that joy and collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. DON'T SEE YOUR DREAM JOB? We’re always looking for talented individuals. If no role matches your skills, send us an open application at founders@mercura.ai or connect with us via LinkedIn. * For Full-Stack/AI Engineers: €10,000 bonus For BDRs/AEs: €5,000 bonus For internships/part-time roles: €500 bonus Any other role: €1,000 bonus About the role Skills: Next.js, Python, React, TypeScript, Docker, PostgreSQL, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing Mercura is building AI software for the backbone of our economy. We are one of the fastest growing companies from YC’s W25 batch and raised a heavily oversubscribed round at one of the highest valuations in our cohort. After surpassing $1M in ARR in under a year, we are looking for team members ready to go all-in to help us reach our next milestone: $10M ARR by the end of 2026. One of our co-founders, Lukas, grew up in a trades family that has been active in the construction industry for over 115 years. Having worked on the construction site himself, he learned first-hand how slow and manual quoting still is in the industry. In an era where AI becomes ubiquitous, we set out on a deeply personal mission: bring AI to the backbone of our economy - to the companies that keep our world running. As a AI Engineer, you will play a key role in building AI systems end-to-end. This is a fast-paced, hands-on role for engineers with high-agency and founder mindset. We’re looking for stellar engineers who take full ownership, thrive in uncertainty, and are willing to go the extra mile to achieve ambitious goals in a fast-paced startup environment. If you are a passionate builder who thrives at the intersection of AI, ML, data engineering, and full-stack development - this is your opportunity to shape how users interact with AI. What you will be working on Work across the full stack to build, deploy and optimize AI agents end-to-end Work with embeddings and fine-tune LLMs for classification and reranking Optimize algorithms for product search Apply RLHF & DPO to align LLMs with human feedback Build data pipelines to process large-scale unstructured data efficiently Make our backend scalable, stable and efficient What we're looking for We are looking for agentic full-stack engineers with a strong background in SWE, AI & ML - and the potential to grow into the founding engineer role. Technical skillset: Strong experience with NLP, LLMs, Embeddings, ML, and AI-powered applications Experience with full-stack software engineering (React, Typescript, Python) Cloud & DevOps: Experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), cloud infrastructure (Azure/AWS/GCP), and infrastructure as code (Terraform) is a plus. Commitment & Mindset: High agency & ownership: You develop new ideas and work hard to achieve something uncertain under minimal guidance Mission-driven: Mercura is part of your life’s mission, and you are willing to make sacrifices to prioritize your job over (almost) everything else Product mindset: You demonstrate product thinking on a deep level and solve problems end-to-end You’re excited to iterate quickly and build software in a fast-paced startup environment You want to work in-person in Munich with an higher intensity than in a 9-5 job Leadership & Communication: You naturally take responsibility and enjoy leading teams You’re one of the strongest engineers in the team and make everyone else better Everyone can come to you for advice on how to fix their hardest problems Clients respect your presence & technical expertise Company Perks Free team dinner (up to 4x/week) UrbanSportsClub membership - join our team workouts 3x/week Easy relocation to Munich — our office is located in the Werk1 Startup Incubator, where you can rent a 1-bedroom apartment right next to the office for just €750/month Real shares in our company with the most favorable tax treatment - no VSOP/ESOP Access to any AI or productivity tools you need The target total compensation (cash+bonus+equity) for this position is €90,000-€200,000 annually. Actual offers and compensation are based on specific job duties, experience, performance, total rewards structure, and other considerations. Technology Software Stack: Typescript, Python, React, Next, Docker, Terraform, Postgres AI Stack: Vector databases, LLMs, Embeddings, observability & evals Interview Process Step 1: Intro call Casual intro meeting with one of the founders to get to know each other and introduce Mercura Step 2: Technical interview 💡 At Mercura, we value our applicants' time. That's why we compensate you with €50 if we ask you to complete a take-home challenge. The technical interview consists of two parts: A take-home exercise, including a short presentation and a live-coding session. A system design interview. For the take-home exercise, we’d provide you with a task. You’ll have 2–3 hours to complete it, focusing on data and AI engineering (e.g., NLP, embeddings, LLMs). The challenge will be based on a practical problem we’ve encountered in our day-to-day work, so it should give you a realistic sense of what the role involves. Later, you’ll present your results to us. The presentation will include a brief algorithmic live-coding challenge, similar to a competitive programming task. Step 3: Personal Fit Meet another co-founder to get a feel for our culture and working style. Step 4: On-Site Work alongside the entire team for a day on-site from our Munich office to fully immerse yourself in our culture and collaboration style. This on-site will be paid. Step 5: Reference checks Please provide 2–3 references so we can gather insights into your strengths and working style. Step 6: Offer If we see a great fit, you will get an offer, including a competitive compensation package with equity participation.